FAQ: The House Passes A Bill To Fix Medicare’s Doctor Payments. What’s In It?

The troubled payment formula for Medicare physicians is one step closer to repeal.

The House last (March 26) Thursday overwhelmingly passed legislation to scrap Medicare's troubled physician payment formula, just days before a March 31 deadline when doctors who treat Medicare patients will see a 21 percent payment cut. The Senate is expected to consider the measure when it returns to work April 13 after its two-week recess.

According to a summary of the bill, unveiled by Republican and Democratic committee leaders earlier last week, the current system would be scrapped and replaced with payment increases for doctors for the next five years as Medicare transitions to a new system focused "on quality, value and accountability."

There's enough in the wide-ranging deal for both sides to love or hate.

Senate Democrats have pressed to add to the proposal four years of funding for an unrelated program, the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. The House package extends CHIP for two years. In a March 21 statement, Senate Finance Democrats said they were "united by the necessity of extending CHIP funding for another four years" but others have suggested they may support the package.

Some senators have also raised concerns about asking Medicare beneficiaries to pay for more of their medical care, the impact of the package on women's health services and cuts to Medicare providers.

In a letter to House members before Thursday's vote, the seniors group AARP said the legislation places "unfair burdens on beneficiaries. AARP and other consumer and aging organizations remain concerned that beneficiaries account for the largest portion of budget offsets (roughly $35 billion) through greater out-of-pocket expenses" on top of higher Part B premiums that beneficiaries will pay to prevent the scheduled cut in Medicare physician payments.

Some Democratic allies said the CHIP disagreement should not undermine the proposal. After the House approved the SGR package by a vote of 392-37, Ron Pollack, executive director of the consumers group Families USA, urged the Senate to "adopt a CHIP funding bill as soon as possible. Families USA believes that a four-year extension is preferable to two years. We also know that time is of the essence, and it is crucial that the Senate act quickly."

Some GOP conservatives and Democrats are unhappy that the package isn't fully paid for, with policy changes governing Medicare beneficiaries and providers paying for only about $70 billion of the approximately $200 billion package. The Congressional Budget Office Wednesday said the bill would add $141 billion to the federal deficit.

For doctors, the package offers an end to a familiar but frustrating rite. Lawmakers have invariably deferred the cuts prescribed by a 1997 reimbursement formula, which everyone agrees is broken beyond repair. But the deferrals havealways been temporary because Congress has not agreed tooffsetting cuts to pay for a permanent fix. In 2010, Congress delayed scheduled cuts five times. In a statement Sunday, the American Medical Association urged Congress "to seize the moment" to enact the changes and since expressed disappointment that the Senate will not act on the measure before the cut takes effect April 1.

Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about the proposal and the congressional ritual known as the doc fix.

Q: How did this become an issue?

Today's problem is a result of efforts years ago to control federal spending – a 1997 deficit reduction law that called for setting Medicare physician payment rates through a formula based on economic growth, known as the "sustainable growth rate" (SGR). For the first few years, Medicare expenditures did not exceed the target and doctors received modest pay increases. But in 2002, doctors were furious when their payments were reduced 4.8 percent. Every year since, Congress has staved off the scheduled cuts. But each deferral just increased the size of the fix needed the next time.

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), which advises Congress, saysthe SGR is "fundamentally flawed" and has called for its repeal. The SGR provides “no incentive for providers to restrain volume,” the agency said.

Q. Why haven't lawmakers simply eliminated the formula before?

Money is the biggest problem. An earlier bipartisan, bicameral SGR overhaul plan produced jointly by three key congressional committees would cost $175 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. While that's far less than previous estimatesfor SGR repeal, it is difficult to find consensus on how to finance a fix.

For physicians, the prospect of facing big payment cuts is a source of mounting frustration. Some say the uncertainty has led them to quit the program, while others are threatening to do so. Still, defections have not been significant to date, according to MedPAC.

In a March 2014 report, the panel stated that beneficiaries' access to physician services is "stable and similar to (or better than) access among privately insured individuals ages 50 to 64." Those findings could change, however, if the full force of SGR cuts were ever implemented.

"The flawed Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula and the cycle of patches to keep it from going into effect have created an unstable environment that hinders physicians' ability to implement new models of care delivery that could improve care for patients,” said AMA president Dr. Robert M. Wah. "We support the policy to permanently eliminate the SGR and call on Congress to seize the moment and finally put in place reforms that will foster innovation and put us on a path towards a more sustainable Medicare program."

Q: What are the options that Congress is looking at?

The House package would scrap the SGR and give doctors a 0.5 percent bump for each of the next five years as Medicare transitions to a payment system designed to reward physicians based on the quality of care provided, rather than the quantity of procedures performed, as the current payment formula does.

The measure, which builds upon last year's legislation from the House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means Committees and the Senate Finance Committee, would encourage better care coordination and chronic care management, ideas that experts have said are needed in the Medicare program. It would give a 5 percent payment bonus to providers who receive a "significant portion" of their revenue from an "alternative payment model" or patient-centered medical home. It would also allow broader use of Medicare data for "transparency and quality improvement" purposes.